


Gaelic Kingdom

by MegumitheGreat



Series: What I think would be in the next Kingdom Hearts [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Brave, Brave (2012) References, Gen, Kingdom Hearts 3 spoilers, One Shot, What-If, one shot series, post-game spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 17:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17985380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Riku and Mickey travel to the Gaelic Kingdom as they continue their search for Sora.





	Gaelic Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> And here we go with a third addition to the what-if series. I watched Brave three times in three days just to write this, and honestly...I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I think because the topic was too real and...there were surprisingly things in the movie that I don't think should have been in a Disney movie, buuut I digress. With this addition, I am reordering the series because I feel Brave would do better before Coco. And I'd like to admit that I don't like how this on turned out, so I won't ask Nomura to hire me for this world; though I imagine that the archery competition would make for a fun minigame, and fighting Mor'du would be a fun boss fight. The only thing really I would LOVE to see is how the KH team would recreate the environment by the creek.
> 
> I also had trouble deciding if Merida would be a Princess of Heart considering she did some not so nice things, but to not make her a Princess of Heart also defeats her purpose as a role model to girls and implies that she has to behave a certain way which she's clearly supposed to challenge...I mean, look at Kairi (seriously)--she resisted Axel kidnapping her, learned to fight with a Keyblade, and is a strong girl (even if that's not apparent anywhere else except in KH2). Merida, in some sort of half-assed way, did redeem herself at the end of her movie, though, so I went with the idea that she could be one. Okay, enough of me rambling.
> 
> Please remember, don't be a dick in the comments.

Riku and Mickey flew the gummi ship to a new world. At the top of it, a medieval castle stood in the center of a great lake. The underside showed a circle of menhir statues. There were orange and red trees, a sign that it was most likely autumn.

“I guess this is our next stop,” Mickey noted.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this world,” Riku stated.

“Maybe not on the outside, but if we’re here, then trouble’s probably brewin’.”

“Shall we land, then?”

Mickey pressed the button to disembark on this new world. When they had arrived, they found themselves in the middle of thick wood. Contrary to the outside of the world, most of the trees were dark green. Those by the edge of the creek nearby were already different colors, and Riku felt that it was somewhat chilly.

“This place almost looks like outside of a storybook,” the silver-haired Keyblade wielder commented. He smiled, a feeling of nostalgia overtaking him despite living more of his life on a tropical island. Perhaps it was the spirit of discovery that he saw trees like that, or maybe it was the salmon swimming upstream. “Guess we should get moving.”

The two walked on the hoof-beaten path through the woods until they happened upon a clearing that ended with a bridge heading into the castle they had seen. People were walking and talking, large quantities of food being passed around. Mostly rugged men in kilts were talking about something called The Games.

“Aye, rumor has it that the princess is competing for her own hand in marriage,” one man had said in a thick Scottish accent that the outsiders could barely understand.

“Clearly, she hasn’t been raised right! A princess should sit quietly and choose the best partner for her natural life,” a woman scoffed.

“Queen Elinor tried to train her; the lass just doesn’t know how to sit still,” a second man grumbled.

“Well, I bet if she were to keep that red mop of hers trim and tidy like the queen’s, then this wouldn’t be a problem, now would it?”

“Aye!”

Riku leaned down to Mickey’s level to ask what he thought about the conversation. Perturbed by the gossip, the King suggested that they made their way to the competition. Whoever this “lass” was, she seemed to be a person of interest.

The farther they went into the kingdom to the fields where children were pretend fighting and adults were eating and drinking, the more self-conscious Riku felt. The eyes of the spectators were homing in on them. The magic that protected the order hadn’t done anything to disguise their identities.

“A couple of new competitors?” a maid whispered.

“Probably,” another replied. “I wonder from which clan they hail. If I were a princess, that young man would definitely be my favorite suitor.” She winked at Riku.

“But what about the mouse?”

Mickey himself felt out of sorts in the gathering. He was going to pull Riku to the side to think of a better way to blend in until they heard a fanfare. They assimilated into the crowd watching the competition.

It was a competition of the princess’s choice, and she had chosen archery. There were three young men battling for her hand in marriage. A dim-witted one, a gentle giant that no one could understand, and a slender one with flowing hair. Each one had a designated target. Then a fourth target was set out, and the maid from before was whispering to the king and pointing at Riku.

“Aye, fetch him a bow,” the Scottish king replied.

The maid bowed, disappearing from the spectators’ tent. In only a few minutes, she appeared at Riku’s side with a prepared bow.

“Excuse me, sir, but His Majesty has requested that you also participate in the contest,” she explained.

“Um, no, thank you,” Riku tried to politely decline. The maid simply wouldn’t have it, pulling him from Mickey to the three men that were waiting to shoot their arrows. The Keyblade wielder attempted to protest his joining, and even though he was stationed beside the dim-witted one, he knew he was in something of a predicament. “I don’t know how to shoot an arrow!” he whispered to himself. He watched the first contestant—the man with flowing hair.

He knocked the arrow then let it fly into the target. The head pierced just outside the first ring, eliciting a stifled giggle from both the king and the fair maiden.

“That’s alright, m’boy!” his father, a skinny and crazed-looking version of him, called out. His son proceeded to scream and wail and throw a nasty tantrum that clearly put off the princess. When he launched his bow far into the crowd behind him, she had to commend his throwing arm.

Next was the gentle giant, who managed to hit closer to the bull’s eye but still fell short the points needed to win. Third was the dim-witted man. He knocked his arrow, but it veered away from the bow like a door swinging open. He knocked it again, and it swung away again. It was an endless cycle of knocking and swinging until the king bellowed from the tent:

“Get on with it, lad! Just shoot the arrow!”

The booming voice startled the challenger, and he let go of the arrow. It whizzed through the arrow and planted itself into the center of the target. A toothy grin stretched the corners of his mouth. His father danced and celebrated, flashing the other fathers whose sons had disappointed the princess.

“Feast your eyes!” he cackled.

“He made it?” the princess gasped. Then she saw Riku. “Wait a second, who is this?”

Riku had observed each of his opponents, learning their movements and how to properly shoot an arrow into the target. His prowess at using the Keyblade granted him an advantage thanks to its magical abilities. He knocked his arrow. Extending his right hand, he lined it up with his eye. His form was almost perfect, and the fathers of the men he was competing again were both mystified and threatened by him. He stared down the length of the arrow at the target, and as it aligned with the center, he let it go. It sped toward the target, and just like the contestant before him, it struck in the dead center. The crowd was quiet; the king was amazed. The princess, a bright orange sprig of her hair peeking from her wimple, frowned at him.

“Well, lass, guess we know who to invite to dinner!” the king guffawed. “Hope you like being called—”

As he turned to face his daughter, he was met with the confused look of one of his hounds. The princess had vanished, and her queen mother worried where she had gone off only to find her on the field. She had thrown away the wimple that hid her vibrant and wild fiery hair. She carried a quiver of arrows and her bow etched with a small Gaelic-style eagle.

“What is she doing?” Elinor gasped. She hiked up her gown before stepping down from the tent.

“I am Merida!” the princess announced to the spectators. “And I am competing for my _own_ hand in marriage!”

The crowd around Mickey whispered in disgust. Her mother had red in her eyes. “Merida, stop this right now!” she commanded.

“If I win, I will not take anyone’s hand but mine!” Merida reiterated, stressing her point that she would not be betrothed to any of the contestants. She glared at Riku. “I will not be the princess-wife to any clans, not even to those we didn’t invite.”

She stopped next to the man with the flowing hair, loosing an arrow into his target in the blink of an eye. She hit the bull’s eye then carried on to the next target. She hit her mark again. She shot through the dim-witted man’s arrow, knocking it out of its place that it had only barely to take. Then she came to Riku’s target.

“Merida, you don’t know what you are doing!” Elinor scolded. “If you loose another bow, I will really give it to you!”

“I will not be someone’s trophy,” Merida murmured. She took aim at the target.

“ _Merida!_ ”

She exhaled.

“I mean it!”

She let go of the arrow as Elinor approached her. Just like Riku’s arrow, it sped through the air, audibly slicing it as it split his arrow down the middle and pierced into the wooden stand holding it up.

Both the princess and the queen were face-to-face with rage. And that rage called the Heartless. Elinor backed away in fear while the king leapt into action. The other men brandished their weapons, but Riku and Mickey were in the middle of the wave. Both summoned their Keyblades.

“We have to make sure everyone is safe!” Mickey said.

Riku glanced at the king. He was already slashing away at the Heartless that neared him; he turned his attention back to the creatures before him when he realized that Merida was prepared to fight as well. He wasn’t going to argue with her since she was clearly adept with her bow.

“Be careful,” he told her. No one knew what the Heartless were—he knew that. “The Heartless crave the light and are lured by the darkness.”

“Well, whatever they are, they have no right to be in this kingdom!” Merida resolutely said. “Come on, eh…”

“I’m Riku.”

“And I’m Mickey Mouse,” Mickey introduced as he smacked aside a Heartless.

“Alright then, Riku and Mickey, let’s show ‘em how we lads and lasses tussle!” Merida said before charging into battle.

Riku slashed at the monsters in droves. Mickey used his magic and power of light to expel them from the crowds before they surrendered the hearts they held in their bellies. Merida shot one after another, her skills on par with a sniper in the dead of night. She couldn’t help but take peeks at her suitors, and each one disappointed her. They had run from the fight, and as she defeated the Heartless as a brother-in-arms with Riku and Mickey, she began to respect the outsiders as her equals. She figured out that they weren’t suitors from some unknown clan. She watched their clothes. They were from somewhere outside of the kingdom, from far away.

Riku unleashed his Thundaga spell, ridding the gathering of the stragglers. The crowd had quieted down, and when things had returned to normal, he and Mickey were met with mixed emotions.

The king Fergus patted them on the back and invited them to the feast. Merida, however, was dragged back to the castle with her mother. Riku reached out to her to commend her on her fighting only to be dragged to the chambers for food. And later that night, he and Mickey sat with the hundreds of men as they joked and roared about the princess and the king’s repetitive stories of his encounter with an entity named Mor’du. Neither of them partook in the drinking, and they couldn’t handle the stench of the haggis and other delicacies.

“Mickey, can we…show ourselves out?” Riku asked over the ruckus.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Mickey agreed. “We should try to find Merida. If the anger between her and her mother called the Heartless, that may be our problem.”

As quietly as they could, they left the feast for the rest of the castle. They snuck around, shortly reaching the kitchen where Merida was fixing a small cake on a plate with blueberries.

“Merida? What are you doing?” Riku asked.

“Shush,” she hissed. She stomped up to him. “You should walk out of here right now before Mum seems you.”

“I think you mean before she sees you,” Mickey countered. “What’s that cake?”

“None of your business. Look, I…I just need her to take one bite. I want to change her so she can let go of this silly marriage thing.”

“So you’re going to poison her?!” Riku gasped.

“No, it’ll just—ugh! I knew you wouldn’t understand!” She dropped herself on a stool, arms crossed. “Outsiders like you wouldn’t understand.”

Riku and Mickey looked at each other with curiosity. What was she going to do? She knew that they were outsiders, so did that mean she would try to leave her world?

“I want to break tradition,” Merida confessed. “I don’t want to be a princess married off like some trophy to one of those blithering idiots out there. Mum is just ready to send me off like packaged goods, and…and I want my freedom.” She folded her hands without her bow to hold. “That’s why I bought a spell from a witch to change my mum so she would leave me out of this.”

Mickey gently touched her hands. “Aw, I can understand why you would want to change your mom, but Princess Merida, there are other ways to change her mind,” he said.

“You’ve obviously never met that stubborn beast.”

“Maybe not,” Riku added. “But using a sneaky thing like a spell isn’t the right way. Lying and going behind her back invite darkness into your heart. Trust me, I’ve been there, and I hurt someone really important to me because of that.”

Merida frowned then softened. She looked at the cake. It was wrong to use magic to force a change in her fate. Her hotheadedness was useful, but she had to concede that pursuing a rage-filled wish felt almost dirty.

“Well, I got to talk her out of this stupid betrothal somehow, and I can’t just walk up to her and say, ‘Yes, Mum, I understand now’. That completely defeats the purpose, and it won’t bring my bow back. Chucked it into the fire, she did.”

As much as Riku hated the idea and knew that it violated the laws of order that Donald so desperately tried to protect when he was travelling with Sora and that Mickey was adamant about upholding in the same regard, he suggested the idea that Merida would choose him. If both parties were to decline, that would settle the issue, wouldn’t it? Then he remembered there was the dim-witted suitor. He had scored just under the Keyblade wielder. He would no doubt be the runner-up in the proposal.

“You see the problem now?” Merida scoffed.

“We can find a different way around it,” Riku reassured. “Let’s just find the queen first.”

Merida reluctantly went along with it. They left the kitchen for Elinor’s bedroom. A few minutes later, the queen herself had come into the kitchen on the assumption that her daughter had come back home, snuck into the kitchen for sweets, and tried to steal some back to her bedroom.

“I could have sworn I heard her in here,” she muttered. Then she spied the cake on the table. “What’s that?”

She took a step to it. A portal of darkness suddenly appeared behind her, a man in a black hooded coat belonging to the Organization quietly stepping out of it.

“Your daughter came home and prepared that for you,” he said, startling the queen out of her wits.

“How did you get into the castle?” Elinor interrogated him.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m just the messenger. Merida made that cake for you as a peace offering. She wanted to apologize for her behavior earlier.”

Elinor scrutinized the little cake. It appeared to be something of a raspberry tart. She picked it up, cutting a small piece from it and taking a bite. The hooded man vanished. Merida, Riku, and Mickey had just returned to the kitchen.

“Merida?” Elinor said with a mouthful of cake. “Where have you been?”

“Mum, no!” Merida gasped.

As if on cue, Elinor let out a belch unbecoming of a queen. “Merida, what did you put in that cake?” she asked her with disgusted confusion. She let out another burp before collapsing.

In seconds, Elinor’s lithe form morphed into the burly shape of a bear. Her long dark hair became her fur, and her elegant gown was torn to shreds. Merida was beside herself. Elinor the bear stood up to her full height, and like alarm bells, the pots above her head clanged together. She let out a bellow as she hit her head, and upon seeing the giant claws, she roared in panic.

“What was that?!” Fergus was heard calling out in the throne room. “It sounded like a bear!”

“Oh brother, not again,” one of the suitors’ fathers grumbled.

The pots and pans were still clattering together, beckoning the king and his men to the kitchen.

“Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!” Merida gasped. She tried to push her mother towards the back door leading out of the castle. “Mum, you’ve got to go! If Dad finds you—”

“Merida! Blast, where has that girl gone off to?” Fergus growled.

Mickey summoned his Keyblade. “You two need to get out of here,” he said. “Riku and I can keep them busy.”

“We can meet in the woods outside of the kingdom,” Riku said. “Once we’re all safe, then we can figure out what to do.

Merida, not wanting to just leave the outsiders to face her father but knowing she had no choice, forced the bear out of the kitchen. The two headed for the forest to the ring of menhir statues where there was a small gathering of little blue will-o-the-wisps. Merida was glad to see them, and she and her mother followed them to a small hut deep in the woods.

Back at the castle, Fergus huffed with his demands to know where the bear went. Even though Riku and Mickey held their ground and denied that there had been a bear, he didn’t believe them.

“You lads look awful strange, come to think of it; probably marauders, eh?” Fergus accused. “Come here and face me like men! Such intruders shan’t escape me!”

Fergus raised his sword over them, but Riku parried him just as he was about to slash him. The two battled each other while Mickey shot at him with as weak of spells as he could manage. The last thing he wanted was to injure the peg-legged boulder of a warrior, yet he feared that if given the chance, he would snap Riku in half like a twig. It was only necessary for them to buy time. They didn’t know how far Merida and Elinor had gotten into the forest, and they didn’t want to lead Fergus straight to them while he was in this blind rage. Riku and Fergus locked arms again, the Keyblade gaining the upper hand just enough to push him off. Mickey fired a ball of light, but this time it stopped in midair. Fergus had gone still as a statue.

“What’s going on?” Riku said suspiciously.

“Well, that played out way better than I imagined,” Xigbar’s voice echoed as a dark corridor appeared next to Fergus. The black-hooded man revealed the scarred face of someone they had thought had been slain twice. Xigbar’s golden eye pierced Riku’s heart, a tension rising in him that he was all too familiar with.

“Weren’t you defeated at the Keyblade Graveyard?” Riku asked him, not for a second letting down his guard.

“As if! Do you really think pipsqueaks like you could end me just like that? Nah, I just felt like letting Xehanort take the spotlight.” Xigbar paced around Fergus. “But enough about me. Even though I just winged it, this plan worked out better than I imagined.”

“What are you trying to do?” Mickey asked him.

“Man, you really don’t get it, do you?” He leaned on Fergus like he really was just a simple ornament. “Surely, Sora told you about the New Seven Hearts. I had my doubts about the princess in this world—completely consumed by anger for her mother yet still pure enough to be the light of this world.”

“Merida is a Princess of Heart?” Riku asked more himself.

“Ee-yup, and she was about to lose that status if she had gone through with that little spell she bought. You know, for someone so enraptured with darkness, you really did turn out to be an exceedingly bright light. That said, this whole kerfuffle could have been avoided if she just listened to her mom instead of her heart.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying that she wouldn’t be targeted if she had just gone with the flow. A light that shines as brightly as her only comes from the bravery to confront her fate. Now that she’s been identified and taken on this role, I just came to warn you that maybe you should protect her. Never know who or what might like to snuff her out.”

Riku raised an eyebrow at the implication. What was he talking about?

“In this world, there’s a legend that serves to prevent people from foolishly buying spells from the witch deep in the woods. A break with tradition sends the world into chaos, and that gave birth to a monster that waits for its prey. As a Princess of Heart, she attracts the darkness with that succulent light. If it manages to catch her—well, you Guardians of Light might have a rough time.” 

He waltzed up to Riku, his golden eye wide and searching. He got up in his face, the leering gaze shaking him to his core. Xigbar had never been one to outright attempt to strike fear in him or Sora, but the malice in his being was as evident as the darkness he wielded.

“I’d make a beeline for her while she’s still alive, little Keyblade warrior,” he hissed at him. “There’s a bread crumb trail out there. You just have to find it.” He pulled back. “I’ll keep Ol’ Peggy here stopped in time for a little bit if you want to get a head start. He won’t know where you’ve gone. You’ll just vanish before his eyes.”

Riku and Mickey lowered their weapons. They knew they couldn’t trust him, but they had no other way to escape. Morning was beginning to peek over the hills and trees. They couldn’t waste any more time.

They walked along the path, listening carefully for the roars of a bear and the frustrated grunts of a teenage daughter while fighting small collections of Heartless until they came to the creek where the salmon had been swimming upstream. Merida, who had a new bow and quiver strapped around her torso, and her mother were there catching fish. For once in the time that they had been in that world, Riku and Mickey believed that everything would be alright. They waved to Merida from the back just before Elinor wandered off into the woods. She had been eating fish nonstop, and it now seemed like she was tired of wading in the water.

“Mum? Mum, where are you going?” Merida called to her.

“Queen Elinor, wait,” Mickey said.

The three chased after her into the woods. Merida reached out to her, and when the bear turned around, the worried eyes of her mother had been replaced with the primal instinct of the form she had assumed. The bear growled, a visible cloud of hot breath escaping through her sharp teeth in the nipping weather.

“Mum!” Merida quivered.

“She’s losing herself!” Riku gasped. He tackled Mickey and the princess out of the way before the bear could swipe at them. “Queen Elinor!”

And just like that, the bear regained her human consciousness. Humanity returned to her eyes. She moaned and vocalized her despair when she realized she had tried to attack her daughter and her friends.

“We’re running out of time,” Merida dejectedly said. She explained to Riku and Mickey that while they had been separated, they had found their way back to the witch’s house where she had purchased the spell. The witch herself had vanished, leaving behind a pre-recorded message in a series of concoctions for her to pour into her abandoned cauldron. “She said I had to ‘mend the bond torn by pride’. But I don’t know what that means.”

“We can figure it out together,” Riku reassured her. For the sake of protecting the order, he couldn’t tell her the potential danger coming after her. He didn’t like what Xigbar had said. Who or what—that implication was foreboding. Besides, they were on a mission to find Sora. “Unless…”

“We need to get a move on,” Merida indignantly said. “We have until the second sunrise to fix my mum, or else she’ll be a bear forever.”

Merida led Elinor, Riku, and Mickey through the woods. They returned to the menhir, and again the will-o-the-wisps reappeared to lead them away to somewhere new. There was no hesitation in the fiery princess’s step. She followed the spirits.

The sky was grey with clouds as they neared a heap of rubble that overlooked the ocean from a cliff. The wind was salty, and Riku felt a strange presence. He looked around.

“What’s wrong, Riku?” Mickey asked him.

“N-Nothing,” he replied. He again scanned the area, something troubling his heart. It was a familiar presence yet shrouded in some sort of mystery. Was it the “who”? Was it some hint to Sora’s whereabouts?

“This is…!” Merida finally gasped. Elinor crooned as she analyzed the stones at their feet. “This is the old castle from the legend.”

Riku and Mickey volunteered to head down into the ruins with Merida. Naturally, she felt their presence was compromising to her own sense of adventure, but she couldn’t deny there was something eerie about the place.

Elinor watched her daughter from the hole above them. The three scoured the rubble. There was a reason they were there; the will-o-the-wisps never did anything without the reason of destiny according to myths. The ruins were hundreds of years old, and the etchings in the stone around them were still clear as day, preserved from the weathering effects of time deep in the ground.

Mickey and Riku investigated, shortly finding what appeared to be a small metal crown pendant. It had three spikes, and the chain that it was once connected to had been ripped apart. The silver-haired Keyblade wielder flipped it over and over in his palm. He knew who it belonged to, and worry took hold of him for just a moment. He examined it even more closely, and thankfully there were no indicators of a struggle on it. He shoved the pendant in his pocket.

“This is…these are the princes from the legend,” Merida whispered to herself. She looked at the dusty skeletons still wearing their armors piled around her. “The strength of ten men…” Her emerald eyes fell on a stone slab. It depicted three men on one side and a fourth man on the piece that had been cleanly broken off from the others. “The tapestry…!”

Elinor moaned at the top of the hole.

“The oldest prince…the prince that broke tradition is…!”

Elinor bellowed in warning. Riku, Mickey, and Merida all spun around to find a bear twice as big as the queen looming over them. He was losing fur in some places. Other places were wrought with scars and broken arrows. One eye was black and shining. The other was white with death, a slash extending from the top of its skull to just under its cheek.

“Mor’du!”

The demon bear roared ferociously at them. Merida scrambled up against the wall; she clumsily pulled her bow from around her. She shot arrow after arrow at Mor’du while her mother continued to moan and groan and bellow at the three. Riku and Mickey summoned their Keyblades. It was paramount that Merida escaped alive so she could rescue her mother now that she had realized that her mother had been affected by the same curse that had been placed on the old prince.

Merida tried her best to scale the wall to her mother’s paw as they prepared to occupy Mor’du. Riku smacked away his claws while Mickey called it to the other side of the throne room that they had discovered. Riku took the chance to hit the bear as hard as he could, but even then it was no use. The animal was a tank. He saw Merida was almost free, and in an effort to drag her down to eat her, Mor’du galloped to her dangling feet. Riku parried his claws while ordering Mickey to fire as many pearly lights as he could. In one swipe, however, the bear sent Riku flying into the wall. The Keyblade wielder had been stunned, his vision doubling and teetering before him as he tried to stabilize himself.

When he had regained his bearings, Merida was gone—escaped back to the castle with her mother to mend the bond torn by pride. Mickey was cornered. Riku aimed the tip of his Keyblade at Mor’du. Noticing that wisps of darkness were wafting from his broad shoulders, he knew he had to try and abate some of the darkness stored in his form. He fired a blast a of ice. Mor’du slowly turned to him.

“Riku!” Mickey cried out before casting his Curaga spell.

Riku stood up against the wall behind him. Even if he had been healed by his friend, he was still cornered by a bear that was far too tall to fit in the throne room and far too strong to fight alone. He swung at him only for Mor’du to knock the Keyblade aside and pin his arm to the wall with a crushing force.

“No!” the King gasped.

Then suddenly, a dark corridor opened beneath Riku and Mickey, which swallowed them up instantly. Mor’du had lost his prey, but it mattered not to him. He was more interested in getting the wild princess. He had followed them to the kingdom, hiding in the forest as Elinor was chased by her husband and his men to the menhir. And while Merida in the end worked with her to defeat Mor’du, she had received help from another Keyblade wielder.

Riku and Mickey found themselves drifting in the In Between where the gummi ship, piloted from afar by Chip and Dale, rescued them. They were completely flabbergasted by what had happened. They were so sure that they were going to die, yet someone had saved them at the last moment. Was it Xigbar? He did require some of their assistance, but they couldn’t be certain. It was a dark corridor, so it couldn’t have been Sora, working from the great beyond of wherever he had ended up.

“Merida!” Riku shouted. 

He looked out the cockpit window of the gummi ship to find that the world of the Gaelic Kingdom was shining with an intense light. The protective barrier that the heart of the world always erected had returned, as if to signify that Merida was safe and that the keyhole of the world had been sealed. He couldn’t begin to understand what had happened. He reached into his pocket, retrieving the crown pendant that had become ingrained in his memory.

“It…couldn’t have been, right?”

“Riku?” Mickey uttered.

“I’m fine. Let’s get going to the next world.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I also thought that ending this one the way that the Heartless War ended in Hollow Bastion (KH2) was better since 1) I did NOT want to write all the way up to the ending because that's boring and too repetitive and 2) Merida's problem isn't one that Riku and Mickey could fix like...say...Rapunzel (weak argument, I know). Considering that Merida and Elinor's frustration with each other is a strictly personal thing, it would honestly probably end up how Frozen did (though apparently, Disney had strict guidelines on what they could do with that world). In the end, this one I guess became some sort of hybrid of an original story and the given story from the movie. And a friend did point out that with these one shots, "family" is certainly a central theme. That was by coincidence.


End file.
